Lonely Queen
by Sweet September Storm
Summary: It was said that the Maharaat granted audience of no outworlder. But Leylion Shey cared not what was said, for he trusted in a strange god. Fortune was its name, and Fate followed hard on its heels. Very, very loosely based on Rapunzel.


**Lonely Queen**

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><p><em>Blessed are the Maharaat above all peoples, for great is their peace.<em>

It is a saying carved above every lintel in every house of the cities of the Planet Maharaat. The people of the Quiet World read the inscription each day and whisper their gratitude to the great domed Citadel of Mahara, for they know as no outworlder can the price of their peace. Within that domed Citadel, enclosed in halls of onyx-bound ivory and silver-veined cedar lives the Maharaat herself, Queen of the Quiet World. She is Queen alone, as were all her Foremothers before her. Her name is forgotten, for when the Gift of the Maharaat came to her at the age of three-and-ten, her childhood name was cast off. Then she was known to all to be the true Daughter of the Maharaat, heart and soul of the people she would one day rule.

That day came at the dawning of twelve years past, upon the departure of the Queen Mother from the World-that-is-Seen. The Daughter then became the Maharaat, Serene Majesty of the Quiet World. From that day forth, the Maharaat had stirred not once from her Citadel. _It is a temptation too great_, the people of Mahara say to one another as they tread reverently by the gates of the Citadel. _She has wisdom beyond her years of five-and-twenty_, they are assured by their neighbors. _Without her foresight, our peace would be lost._ For her seclusion they love her all the more.

Nevertheless, the Queen's fame reached well beyond the green curve of her home planet. Even the warring, bloodthirsty worlds of the Pharos Empire honored the name of the Maharaat. Battle-scarred and war-weary, many Pharosi citizens have given all they possess to buy a place in an Ambassador's embassy to Maharaat. They pray to their strange gods for passage, hoping against hope that they may be permitted an audience with the Maharaat. They pray for her favor, and for asylum granted from the never-ending bloodshed of their homeworlds.

In all this their gods invariably fail them. Within the twelve years of her reign, none but the sanctioned Ambassadors had been given leave to enter the presence of the Queen. For twelve years, the Maharaat had seen no strangers in her court, been troubled by no unfamiliar voice, found herself untouched by the sight of new faces. Of this the Queen was glad, for she knew best of anyone the danger of such sights.

But in the year the scribes of Maharaat called the Solar of a Starling Wind, a young scholar of Ghane trusted to a reckless god and found his prayers answered. Fortune was the name of his god, and Fate traveled hard on his heels.

It was high spring in the Solar of a Starling Wind when the scholar Leylion Shey found himself in possession of a place aboard the Ghanen Ambassador's ship. Besides the clothes on his back and the dreams in his head, Leylion Shey owned nothing at all. What wealth he once possessed had been poured into the coffers of a certain businessman of Ghane who was owed a favor by the Ambassador. Thus for the price of one hundred thousand ghe'ena was the scholar's place secured aboard the embassy ship. Leylion Shey thought it a bargain, for he was going to see the Maharaat. And what was wealth compared with that?

The embassy arrived on Maharaat within the last hours of the night. The golden Lesser Moon looked down upon the sleeping city of Mahara, shedding the last of its light in the unwitting service of Leylion Shey's troublesome god. Unknown to the Ghanen embassy, the Maharaat had chosen this night to forego sleep, to look out upon her slumbering people and contemplate the great weight of her Gift. She stood wakeful and watchful, silent on the portico of her chambers, breathing deeply of the sweet air. Her handmaidens surrounded her, veils drawn and hands ready to reach for their scimitars if any danger threatened their Queen. But the danger that approached on that quiet moonlit night was not of the kind that could have been warded off with weapons, for as the Maharaat surveyed her city that she found her gaze drawn irresistibly towards the gates of the Citadel.

Her stewards were at that moment conducting the Ghanen embassy into the courtyard below her. Weary with travel, the Ambassador and his retinue followed slowly, their shoulders stooped and their heads heavy. The Maharaat watched with little interest. She had been visited by many embassies in her reign. The Ambassador himself was unchanged, and the others foreigners were of no significance. Her attention was arrested, however, as her gaze fell upon the penniless scholar. Leylion Shey carried his head high, and there was a light in his eye that the Queen could not help but notice. The love of adventure shone from within him, igniting his spirit with a restless passion, a deep hunger for great knowledge and the great deeds dared in pursuit of it. He looked ten times more alive than the most wakeful of his counterparts.

What happened in the soul of the Maharaat as she beheld the lowly Leylion Shey cannot be told. She spoke of it to no one. It was only certain that the next day, for the first time in the long years of her reign, the Queen of the Quiet World permitted those of the company of the Ambassador to enter with him during his audience.

As for Leylion, the poor Ghanen scholar knew not what became of him. His entrance to the Audience Chamber of the Maharaat was as his entrance to the world itself. Before he had been blind. Now were his dull eyes opened, and he realized he had never before seen true beauty. The Maharaat was a mysterious harmony of opposites. Sitting at ease on her throne of pearl and silver, she seemed utterly untouched by care or worry—but the weight of the world was borne in the curve of her shoulders. Her expression was as open and unlined as a child's, yet in her eyes of stormy gray there was reflected the wisdom and the suffering of many ages.

Leylion knew then why she was called the Serene Majesty of the Quiet World. It was as though she knew at once both everything and nothing about the sorrows of humankind. How she could was a mystery to the Ghanen scholar, for he had heard of her famed seclusion. Even so, it did not matter. With a single glimpse of her fathomless face, Leylion was moved to his very soul, and just as the Maharaat had been stirred to strange action when she beheld the daring outworlder, so too was Leylion stirred to do something both unprecedented and unforgivable.

He lifted his head and looked into the eyes of the Maharaat.

She looked back at him.

Somewhere in the universe ancient stars exploded into supernovas and tiny white dwarfs collapsed into black holes. Somewhere in the universe, great civilizations trembled on the brink of conquest as terrible monarchs rose to power atop a mountain of the slain. Also in that moment, on a little world beyond the reaches of the war-torn Empire, the people of Maharaat were suddenly united in a joy that could only be understood by the two wordless figures whose eyes had met in the throne room of the Queen's Citadel.

Two things Leylion Shey heard at her gaze. _You have done what no foreigner before you has dared, man of Ghane. You must leave with the others, but do not fear. Wait a little, and we will find you again._

One thing the Maharaat heard at his gaze. _My Queen, if you ask it of me, I will wait forever._

Among the foreigners to leave the throne room that morning was one whose heart was no longer his own.

The Maharaat sat silent on her throne long after the Ambassador and his embassy had been dismissed, her eyes on the place where Leylion Shey had knelt and her mind deep in thought. That night, after a quiet banquet with the Ghanen Ambassador and his wife, the Maharaat entrusted her most faithful handmaiden with a secret task.

The silver glow of the Greater Moon was just brushing the horizon when a wakeful Leylion opened his door to a veiled stranger. He bowed and opened his lips to speak, but the stranger raised a hand and bade him remain silent. When she beckoned he followed her without question. The handmaiden led him through quiet colonnades lined with statues of the Maharaat's Foremothers and wide paved courtyards sprinkled with dew, up shallow steps and down secret ways shrouded in spider-web tapestries. The moonlit wonders of the Queen's Citadel passed by Leylion unnoticed, for he saw ever before him the unforgettable storm-gray eyes of the Maharaat.

In a roofless passage deep within the Citadel, the handmaiden finally halted. Leylion came to himself as he paused and found his heart racing. Striving for calm, he looked around. Grass grew underfoot. The passage had been long neglected by the gardeners. High, high above, the scholar could see the towers of the Queen's residence shining like polished opal in the moonlight. The stars were bright and burning in the sky above. Leylion breathed in the scent of some alien flower, wafted to him by the spring winds from beyond the door before him. The handmaiden stood next to the door, a key in her hand. Without a word she unlocked it. Leylion began to tremble as she gestured him forward. He clenched his fists and strode forward. The door swung inwards on silent hinges and Leylion—pulse humming in his ears, palms sweaty, eyes bright—entered.

He found himself in a garden. A courtyard garden, tiny and untended. On all sides rose the high smooth walls of the Citadel, unblinkingly bright in the light of the Greater Moon. Undergrowth swelled in tangles around the roots of four mighty trees, which stood at the four points of an empty marble fountain. Masses of young flowering vines trailed up the walls, yearning to spread the idyllic neglect of the hidden garden. Once again, Leylion Shey took note of none of this, for beneath the bower of the nearest tree, a woman waited.

He knew at once it was she. His bare feet made soft sounds against the fallen leaves that covered the ground as he strode forward, but his stride faltered and his knees began to shake as he drew closer, until he could not bring himself to go on. He halted at the edge of the tree's shadow and knelt without a word. After what seemed eons, the Queen spoke in the Ghanen tongue. Her voice was calm, even, and quiet. It betrayed no emotion, either good or bad. "Rise, Man of Ghane. You, who have broken the Laws of the Maharaat to come here, rise to your feet."

Leylion obeyed, though he shook violently as he did. He did not think he would be able to meet her gaze again. "Forgive me, Your Majesty."

The rustling of her robes against the dead leaves that covered the ground told him that she was approaching. "This morning there was a man who came before our throne and cared not whether it was forbidden for a foreigner to look into the eyes of the Maharaat. He looked at us. We would like for that man to look at us again."

He did. Storm-gray met a gaze of snow-blue. For many long minutes the two were silent. When the Maharaat at last spoke again, Leylion found that the trembling had gone out of his limbs. He looked on the Queen with joy and without fear.

"What is your name, brave Man of Ghane?"

"Leylion Shey, my lady."

"How do you find yourself in the company of Ambassador de Reylios, Leylion Shey?"

He looked to the ground once more, but this time it was out of embarrassment rather than trepidation. "My lady, your fame is known on Ghane. I am a man of peace. I have long dreamt of looking upon the people of Maharaat and learning their ways, for our world is not like yours. I sold all I had to come and see for myself."

She did not reply for a long while, and Leylion looked up, thinking he might have offended her.

"My lady?" The Queen returned his gaze. Her face betrayed nothing beyond her customary serenity, though in her eyes he caught for a moment a flicker of pain. Leylion drew back. "Your Majesty, forgive me! What is it I have done?"

With a smile and a gesture of her hand, all traces of pain vanished. She did not answer him. "Walk with us, Leylion Shey."

He obeyed, puzzled but anxious to ease whatever wound he had caused her. Together they began a circuit of the garden.

"We will speak with you here, Man of Ghane, where we would never speak with another. You say that you came from your Pharos world to seek peace, but truly you came in search of answers. We know it. We have seen it before."

Leylion bowed his head. "You speak the truth. I came to Maharaat to find answers, to know how your people live together in such harmony where my people know only war and violence and conquest. That is why I came. But now that I am here, I have no desire to know _why_. I only wish…"

The Queen stopped and looked at him. "What is it you wish, Leylion Shey?"

He raised his head. "My lady, I wish only to know _you_. That is all I could ever want, having looked once on your face."

She resumed walking, her expression giving away nothing. "Then we must tell you something no outworlder has ever known."

Leylion followed. "What is that, my lady?"

"You have found what you set out to seek, Leylion Shey."

"I do not understand."

"You wished to know the peace of our people, and you wish to know us. What you do not yet seen is that they are one and the same."

"My lady?"

Her storm-gray eyes grew troubled. "It is not idly the Queens of the Quiet World bear the name Maharaat. We _are_ the Maharaat." She laid a hand against her heart. "Whatever our people feel, we feel. When they hurt, we hurt. When they are contented, so are we."

Leylion stopped again, looking at the woman by his side with new wonder. He could sense she wanted to say more. "But?"

"They also feel what we feel."

"You mean…?"

"Every Maharaat will dream this night of a stranger from the stars and his snow-blue eyes."

A cold thrill rushed through the scholar's body. He spoke in a whisper. "_My lady…_"

She turned away from him. "Leylion Shey, the people of Maharaat are at peace because I am at peace…because _we_ are at peace." She shook her head once as if the word made her uneasy. "From the age of three-and-ten we have shared the emotions of our world, and in that time we have learned serenity. Please do not make us unlearn it."

"My lady, I would never do such a thing."

She faced him, her calm features contorted for an instant into an expression of reckless affection. "Leylion Shey, my brave Man of Ghane, you already have." And she reached her hand to his chin to bring his eyes to hers.

Leylion could have climbed mountains, swam measureless oceans and defeated armies in that moment. Silent the two stood, finding no end of wonder in each other's eyes. Minutes passed. The golden curve of the Lesser Moon peeped into the circle of sky high above them as they stood there, thinking that a new pair of statues had been added to the forgotten garden.

At long last, the Queen lowered her hand. The spell was broken. "And yet it cannot be," she said.

Sudden tears sprang to sting Leylion's eyes. "Why not, my lady? There is nothing left for me on Ghane."

"It cannot be because we must think of our people. We cannot be allowed to love you."

The word made his breath catch in his throat. "But how will that hurt your people? Will our love not make them…" He searched for a word to encompass all he felt, and found none. He settled for a poor substitute. "Happier?"

The Maharaat gave him a solemn look. "Leylion Shey, do not be naïve. Even we know the dangers of love. Often we have felt it in our handmaidens; when they take a man as their consort, there are days when they can hardly speak for anger. And when their consort passes from the World-that-is-Seen, their grief is so great they must keep out of our presence for nearly a moon. How could we think our love would be any different?"

"Would your people not understand?"

"One may _understand_ such feelings and still act recklessly while in the grip of them. If we were to take you as our consort and we were to argue, what might our people do? Possessed of such anger, might neighbor turn and slay his neighbor for no reason at all? Or if you were to pass from the World-that-is-Seen before we had, what would become of this world? Our grief would plunge the Maharaat into a despair you can scarcely imagine. People would kill themselves for missing you, though they had never so much as seen your face." She turned her eyes from his and studied a vine on the nearby wall. Her voice grew cold. "Beside, the Queens of the Quiet World take no Kings."

Stunned was he to hear such things. "_No Kings_? My lady, that cannot be. How else are the Daughters of Maharaat begotten?"

Still studying the vine, she spoke without emotion. "The Queens beget and bear their Daughters alone. We and only we can do so. It is forbidden to speak of it."

Leylion felt his hope withering as her calmness returned. Desperate, he tried one last time. "My lady…Maharaat…please hear me. You knew I came for you, even before I knew it myself. You have left me no choice but to love you. There is naught left for me on my planet; I have nothing and no one to return to. All my heart is here, with you. Will you not accept me?"

The Queen tore her gaze from the wall and looked at him. Her voice was gentle. For the last time in her life, she spoke as herself—a lonely young woman who bore the weight of her world on fragile shoulders. "Leylion Shey, I cannot. As you wish, I cannot love you. You must leave the Citadel tonight, but Maharaat lies open to you. Go where you will. My blessing goes with you."

The tears had all fallen, leaving his snow-blue eyes blank and burning. "And what will I do?"

She smiled, serene once again. "You will learn to live as a Maharaat. You will find that my people will welcome you. They will love you, even as I have loved you. Return their love, and I will feel it."

"What will you do?"

"We will do as we have always done, Leylion Shey. We are Queen. We hear the laughter and the tears of a hundred hundred-thousand hearts, and they hear ours. We will do our best to bear that Gift."

"Then I must go," Leylion said woodenly.

"You must go. Our handmaiden will show you back to your chamber. When you have taken from there what things you think you need, she will show you out of the Citadel."

"I cannot come back, can I?"

Slowly, gravely, the Queen shook her head.

Leylion Shey resigned himself to his bitter god with a bow. "Then my Queen, I will not linger. Farewell."

She raised her hand in parting as he backed away, avoiding her gaze. If he had met it, he might have seen, trembling like liquid diamonds in the corner of those storm-gray eyes, the first and last tears ever shed by the Queen of the Quiet World. For as the lowly scholar of Ghane slipped into the shadows of the secret door and from her life, the Maharaat spoke these words into the silent spring air:

_Cursed is the Maharaat above all peoples, for great is her sacrifice._


End file.
